Abdication

Dean Sobers

Most of the camera’s image
is swallowed up in darkness—
the unlit green.
But along the top—see?—a terrace
and in the top right hand corner,
just away from the houses,
a flare of white fire.

That is his beaten body,
doused in white spirit
and ignited.

Need there be someone there?
Always someone there,
puts everyone else on edge.

“A fluctuating cycle
of complaints and countercomplaints.”
“I thought how could the council
have moved him just up the road?
I mean rumours can follow.”

“Everyone was cheering.”
The outcome was sighted.
Forewarned. Disregarded.
Misreckoning.
Innocent blood.
Life can be brittle.
Inanity, brutal.
Escalating cycle.
Someone who tries us.

“Did he cry wolf?
Was there a concept of
that? Yeh.”
Need there be someone there?
Always someone there,
puts everyone else on edge.